


Foolish or Hopeful

by undernightlight



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Feels, POV The Master (Doctor Who), Sad, The Master Has Issues, the Master needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22996414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undernightlight/pseuds/undernightlight
Summary: He barely escaped Gallifrey with his life intact, but waiting in the TARDIS, was something unexpected, and something much harder to face than his own death.[s12 ep10 spoilers]
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Foolish or Hopeful

**Author's Note:**

> Not 100% sure why I wrote this but yano, it happened and I like it, so I hope you do too :)

He stumbled into the TARDIS, getting to the control panel as quickly as he could. It had been a while but the controls were second nature, and he was off Gallifrey as quickly as possible. He wasn’t sure if the death particle had reached him. He was alive yes, but the Cyberium was in him, and maybe that made a difference. Maybe that was why he felt so ill.

He struggled to stay on his feet, and he staggered back from the console before falling to the floor, his hand slipping from where he’d tried to hold on. It hurt, hitting the metal floor, and he groaned through his teeth, as jolts of pain ran through him like lightning. Air couldn’t get into his lungs fast enough. He was going to suffocate from the pain, he -

“It didn’t work, did it?”

He looked up upon hearing the voice, one he hadn’t heard in so long, and he was met with the face of a child, a young boy with dark hair and dark eyes. The boy stood still, hands at his side, face mostly blank, back straight.

“It didn’t calm the rage like you though it would.”

He was still struggling to breath, and the child in front of him didn’t help, staring at him. Breathing was still painful, and he still felt sick, and his body still ached and trembled. He pushed himself back and up against the railing, letting his head hit the metal with a painful and dull thud. He couldn’t take his eyes off the child as it took steps closer to him.

“Did you think it would though?” He didn’t dignify it with a response. “You did,” and the child’s voice was sad. “I don’t know if that makes you foolish or hopeful.” The child stopped a few paces away, staring down. The rage that filled him was unlike his usual anger; he’d always been emotional in every sense but this felt...more. It felt raw and uncontrollable like it would eat him alive and for once that wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want to be swallowed. He didn’t want to drown.

“I’m sorry,” said the child, “I know it’s difficult for you. I know you like to pretend it isn’t. Few get to see you without the mask. I do, so does the Doctor.”

His face burned, his vision blurring, his cheeks sore from holding back what he could, but it was starting to seep through, his feelings pushing outwards on his already broken body. The child crouched down, knees bent but soles flat against the ship’s metal flooring.

“It’s okay you know. The universe doesn’t always need to see you. Being nothing is as powerful as being everything, did you forget that in your old age?” 

He had forgotten, not that it mattered. He was less than everything but more than nothing, he knew that, so the child’s words were pointless. The child was pointless.

“I’m never not here for a reason, you know that as well as I do so don’t lie,” the child said. “You can’t lie to me even if you tried. And you do try, often. Does lying make it easier? Does it ever actually change anything?”

He wanted to say that it did, wanted to shout it with as much conviction as physically possible, but he couldn’t. The child was right, he couldn’t lie. The child would always know the trust. Through gritted teeth, he managed, “No.”

“Then why do you keep doing it?”

All his life, he’d been a liar, and now it turned out his life was a lie itself. Why change?

“There will always be rage in you,” the child continued, “Rage and pain and fear, and I’m sorry but there’s nothing that can be done without you letting it.” The child reached out to him and placed a hand on his leg, and that was when any grip he held over himself was gone. His body began to shake - not just trembles anymore - uncontrollably as tears fell and strangled sobs escaped him. The child shuffled closer to him, feet scuffing. “Let me help you.”

He nodded, short, rapid bursts as his body started to shut down, curl in on itself. It had been a very long time since he’d felt like this. Gentle hands found him, pulling against his shoulders, and he found himself in the arms of the child. He clung to the child’s clothes - a shirt and loose, ill-fitting jacket - as he continued to unravel.

“I told you, it’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” he managed, broken and dying.

The child pushed him closer, his face buried in the abdomen as hands held him steady as he wept. “I’ll always be here for you, whenever you need me and even when you don’t.”

“I’m sorry I let you become this.”

He couldn’t see it, but he could feel the child shake no. “I know you are, but none one of that matters. We are who we are now, and neither of us can change the past or the beginning of all this, or what led me to be you, but the future is infinite in possibilities. Remember that if nothing else.”

His knuckles were sore from clutching at the fabric. If the fabric wasn’t there, then he’d probably cut himself with his own nails. The anger in him was gone, vacated as soon as the child laid a hand on him. He was reminded why he was always angry, because with anger, no one can see your pain. Maybe he was wrong.

He continued to be a mess, an uncontrollable mess, and the child stayed with him, keeping him close, and it was a comfort he hadn’t realised he’d missed. No more words were said, there was no point; there was nothing else to say. Despite that, the child stayed.

He held on until he couldn’t anymore, until he was so exhausted consciousness left him, and when he came too, he was alone. The floor was cold, so he pushed himself to sit upright, leaning back on the railing that had supported his weight earlier. The TARDIS hadn’t landed anywhere, he could tell. There was an urge to stand, to stumble over to the controls and set a destination, but where would he go? He was being smart when he decided not to move, to instead just sit there and left himself drift in space.

Planets could wait. Everything could wait. All except the child. He was so young then, fresh and clean and unscathed, but it would soon change. The child was seven. When the child turned eight, everything would change. The drumming would come and it would never leave, not for a very, very long time, and not before it caused irreparable damage.

He wished there was something he could do for the child, like the child did for him; he’d happy give himself another chance, even if that meant he, as who he is in that very moment, no longer existed. The child deserved to be more. He took the child, small and wide-eyed and dreaming, and ground them to dust. he ground himself to dust before he even had a chance.

He was definitely a fool.

**Author's Note:**

> Was it clear that "the child" is him??
> 
> Do you guys like Sacha Dhawan's Master as much as I do? Bringing the Master back is always bound to get me excited, but I hadn't really been excited for Doctor Who in so, so long, until this season, and it was so nice to enjoy it again. Sacha did an unspeakably good job with the Master, bringing all the elements I already liked of the character as well as adding more. So much of the last episode aligned with how I already viewed the Master - a credit to the writing and acting - and it was just so wonderful to watch.


End file.
